Synopsis

Product Description

This recording celebrates three exciting
works commissioned and premiered by
the Detroit Symphony Orchestra during
Michael Daugherty's four years as Composerin-
Residence. Inspired by Diego Rivera's
monumental fresco and Frida Kahlo's paintings
created in Detroit, Michigan, Fire and Blood 'rivets the ear with a bold palette of
colors and the skillful elaboration of vibrant themes' (Detroit News). MotorCity
Triptych, 'striking both in its brilliance and in its technical rigor,' is a road trip
through the sounds of Detroit: the 1960s pulse of Motown, the motor rhythms of
Michigan Avenue, and the legend of civil rights icon Rosa Parks. Raise the Roof,
composed for the opening of Detroit's Max M. Fisher Music Center, is a grand
acoustic construction featuring the timpani in a tour de force of urban polyrhythms.

CD Reviews

Fireworks and Ideas

Dean Frey | Red Deer, AB CANADA | 09/03/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I knew Michael Daugherty's music from his 2007 piece Deus ex Machina for Piano & Orchestra (on a 2009 Naxos CD). I like to keep in touch with musical depictions of trains, and this piece really impressed me. I thought it was worthy to stand beside the Little Train movement of Villa-Lobos's Bachianas Brasileiras #2, as well as Arthur Honegger's Pacific 231. Daugherty paints vivid pictures and communicates exciting ideas of movement that are layered with additional insights into a surprising range of ideas from futurism to ghosts to nostalgia for a by-gone era.

The same dynamic takes place in this new disc of three works by Daugherty that were commissioned during his period as Composer-in-Residence with the Detroit Symphony. Fire and Blood (2003) is a full-blown violin concerto that begins with a depiction of Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry murals, as well as scenes from his life, and that of his remarkable wife Frida Kahlo. A highlight is the third movement "Assembly Line", where Daugherty says (in his revealing liner notes) the violin soloist "is like the worker, surrounded by a mechanical orchestra." This is a work that deserves to be taken up by other orchestras; perhaps the excellent soloist on this CD, Ida Kavafian, will take it on the road, or it will be picked up by one or more of the next generation of violinists.

The MotorCity Triptych (2000) is another fun piece by Daugherty which also has a more serious side. This is especially true of the third movement "Rosa Parks Boulevard", with its evocation of African-American preaching through the use of percussion and two trombones. Daugherty calls Raise the Roof (2003) "a grand acoustic construction". I'm sure every timpanist in the world is itching to play this piece. But only a few will have as impressive an orchestra to play in front of as timpanist Brian Jones has in the Detroit Symphony under Neeme Jarvi.

So buy the CD for the fun and fireworks, but stick around and listen three or four times, for some real and profound ideas."

Contemporary music with muscle

Craig M. Zeichner | Brooklyn, NY | 09/22/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Recently, I was reading an article in the Finnish Music Quarterly about composer Kalevi Aho. In the article Aho mentions a criticism that was made of his music by an Austrian journalist who accused Aho's music of being "not dehumanized enough." My complaint about much contemporary music is the opposite, it's too dehumanized. I shun the over-intellectualization of music, loathe works that sound like they were composed with an abacus and notated in battery acid. Thankfully the three works on this fantastic recording of music by Michael Daugherty are filled with passion, wit and drama to spare.

Fire and Blood is a full-blooded, knock your socks off violin concerto that makes pressing technical demands of the soloist but never descends to the level of an empty-headed violin showpiece. The work draws its inspiration from the Detroit Industry murals by the great Mexican artist Diego Rivera and the color and energy that Rivera brought to his art is reflected in the music. Violinist Ida Kavafian plays this music with muscle aplenty and the Detroit Symphony under conductor Neeme Järvi is nothing short of spectacular.

The other works on the recording, Motor City Triptych and Raise the Roof, are also superb. Motor City Triptych is a brilliantly jaunty evocative piece which pays tribute to the Motown sound, Michigan Avenue in Detroit and Rosa Parks. This seems like something of an odd mix but Daugherty's vivid orchestration and rhythmic skill make each movement a memorable tone poem. Brass lovers take note, there's plenty of interesting work for trumpet and trombone throughout. Raise the Roof is a concerto for timpani and orchestra and was inspired by such grand architectural wonders as Notre Dame Cathedral and the Empire State Building. The work offers the timpanist an opportunity to play some melody and even stretch out with a showpiece cadenza. Once again Daugherty pushes hard and the effect is thrilling. This is an essential recording for anybody who cares about the current state of American music - it's very encouraging indeed.

"

Fire and Blood

J. K. Jordan | MI, USA | 09/09/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Michael Daughertys' " Fire and Blood " evokes a crescendo of praise! Superb, imaginative, and incurably intertaining with considerable skill of orchestration and arrangement and with my highest recommendation.

" Volcano " frolics with violin successions of blazing interludes, captivating attention through the inferno furnaces of the imagination. In " River Rouge " Frida Kahlo's struggle to overcome rivers of pain expresses a tantalizing larger movement of forceful emotions with her desire for the fullness of life. The violinist lends form and grace with colored calmative tones. The music forces its way into the listeners soul." Assembly Line " dramatizes the exhausting pace of a worker mechanically driven like the panels in Riveras' mural. Metal instruments echo a factory environment, while the violin strings converge to evoke a riveting motion toward the end.

MotorCity TriptychIn " Motown Mondays " we feel the soul in rhythm with manifestations of mellow climes of feeling and musical intruments orchestrating harmonies of emotion. " Pedal to the Metal " is an electric, pulsating succession of trumpet and strings traveling through gradations of light, like the neon signs along an assembly line." Rosa Parks Blvd " encumbers movements of defiant strength and soul, reflecting her refusal to move to the back of the bus, subversively heartfelt and rhythmically played by the trombone, spiked by the beating of the bass drum." Raise the Roof " In this piece, the composer used many unusual instruments to resonate with historical monuments. Vividly played, the tuba, flutes and finally variations of the timpani acoustically rise to the majestic architecture with gothic undertones celebrating the renowned giants of construction.

With these three pieces, iconoclastic composer Michael Daugherty once again expands the musical and cultural palette with excellent results.

"Fire and Blood" is a triptych framing the auto industrial years of Detroit through the perspectives of activist artists Rivera and Kahlo. "I: Volcano" refers to Rivera's sociopolitical passion and the molten furnaces of the Ford factories he exalted in his 30's murals. Daugherty excels at landscape music, whether evoking a period, a movement, or an individual spirit. Driving and dynamic momentum themes alternate here with more personal and introspective moments, a roiling current of the machines and the painter's ideas about them. In "II: River Rouge", this approach really comes to fruition. Dissonant themes evoke Frida's physical and emotional pain in this era, while poignant melodies suggest the rich life of her memories and works. The use of marimbas, delicate folk melodies on strings, and elegant Mexican trumpets in the middle passages is especially beautiful and haunting. "III: Assembly Line" is man and machine in concert at a breathless, breadthless pace. The worker -conveyed by violinest Ida Kavafian with virtuostic gusto- is the crest of a wave of pizzicato drive and industrial percussion.

The second work, "Motorcity Triptych", explores more of the Detroit historical landscape. The legendary Motown Records often used Detroit Symphony players in its string arrangements; in "Motown Mondays" Daugherty repays this in generous kind with a complex, upbeat, and rousing Classical tribute. Rather than simply mimic their Pop string arrangements, he instead uses strings to evoke the vocal timbres, anthemic dynamics, and romantic spirit of the Motown singers and players. It's like an epic suite of the feeling of Marvin singing more than the song he sang, and more akin to producer Norman Whitfield's textured extravaganzas of later years. (You can hear hints of The Temptations' "Runaway Child, Running Wild" if you're careful. One wonders how brilliantly Daugherty would interpret Marvin Gaye's majestic "What's going On?" album someday.) "II: Pedal-to-the-Medal" is a travelogue of the new car hitting the town. The use of declarative trumpet and hard-driving strings is particularly powerful in a piece as bracing as it is complex. In "III: Rosa Parks," our progressive hero gets her due in a stunning tribute. Rosa, who lived for many years in Detroit, had told Daugherty that her favorite music was the spiritual, "Oh Freedom". He works its essence around trombone leads that emulate the emotional crescendos of impassioned preachers. Its counter-mix of cacophonic irritation and elegant hope perfectly sums the conflict of blind repression versus spiritual freedom. Splendid.

Finally, "Raise the Roof" does just that. Daugherty conjures up the raising of grand buildings with an intricate architecture of tympani and strings. Industrial percussion girds the colossus, while a dizzying array of string motifs catapult its ascent. When the live audience hits their feet with cheers at the end, you're right there with them."

Fire And Blood, And A Lot More From The Motor City

Erik North | San Gabriel, CA USA | 01/01/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In his time, Michael Daugherty has proven that contemporary classical music need not be a struggle for audiences to understand; after all, even works by composers that we take for granted, from Mozart to Beethoven to our country's own Aaron Copland, were once deemed "contemporary." Daugherty, like any solid composer of our time, realizes that one can be innovative and still retain the basic tenets of the classical genre--a trait so aptly displayed in this recording, where three of his pieces pay tribute to the Motor City.

"Fire And Blood" is, for all intents and purposes, a violin concerto inspired by the legendary Mexican painter Diego Rivera's murals representing Detroit's automobile industry, with Ida Kavafian as the soloist. It is in three movements, and combines both the motoric drive that is Motown itself and the influences of the native Mexico that Rivera and his wife, the equally legendary artist Frida Kahlo, came from (marimbas, maracas, and distant mariachi brass are especially prominent in the work's second movement, "River Rouge"). "MotorCity Triptych" is a three-movement suite which is steeped in the city's popular music idiom, notably jazz and the classic sound of Berry Gordy's Motown label of the 1960s. And finally, there's the explosive one-movement piece "Raise The Roof", a pulse-pounding, jazz-influenced work inspired by the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, and New York City's famed Empire State Building. It is practically a neo-concerto for timpani and orchestra, with Brian Jones serving as the soloist. The composer himself served as the producer of these recordings, which were made during live performances in January 2001 ("MotorCity Triptych"), May 2003 ("Fire And Blood"), and October 2003 ("Raise The Roof").

Each of these works is given a first-rate recording by the engineers at the budget label Naxos, and performed splendidly by the orchestra to which the works are dedicated and received their world premieres here, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under their now-Conductor Emeritus Neeme Jarvi. Jarvi, though Estonian by birth, has shown a tremendous appreciation and feel for 20th and 21st century American music during his decade-and-a-half tenure as the Detroit Symphony's music director, continuing the tradition of quality music making that was part-and-parcel of illustrious predecessors like Paul Paray and Antal Dorati, and which is continuing under the current music director, the great Leonard Slatkin.

Such is the explosiveness of these performances that I would rate this as not only the #1 Classical recording of 2009, but one of the best recordings of 2009 in any genre, period."